A flag no more: Microsoft unveils new Windows logo

Microsoft has unveiled the new Windows 8 logo. Gone is the flag motif, …

The multicolored Windows flag is no more. Windows 8 will do away with the wavy Windows logo that Microsoft has used in one form or another for the last 20 years, and replace it with a logo that's, well, a window.

Windows 8 ushers in a new, and completely different, Windows look and feel: it brings the Metro design concept to the desktop. With Metro's emphasis on clean lines and typography, Microsoft wanted a logo that reflected these ideals, and so commissioned agency Pentagram to create the new logo.

Though Microsoft is showing off the logo in blue, in Windows 8 it will change color to match the user's preference.

The surprisingly clean and not as dated as you might expect original Windows logo

Microsoft

Windows compatible

Microsoft

The new logo harks back to the very earliest Windows logos: the simple stylized Windows 1 logo, which represented on-screen windows rather than things with panes of glass, and the old "Windows compatible" black and white hole-in-the-wall window.

The Windows logo has been a flag since 1992's Windows 3.1. The waves of the flag give a sense of motion, apparently, but didn't make a whole lot of sense. In the words of Pentagram's Paula Scher, "Your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?"

Of course, in a few years time, when Metro has become familiar and the desktop gets phased out, a similar question will be asked of the entire Windows name. You see, Metro doesn't have windows at all.

This is fugly as hell, almost as bland and tasteless as the Metro UI itself...

The current animated color boot logo is far the best looking of all.

Once again, change for the worse, change just for the sake of changing it - executive retards play in their bubble...

...under Ballmer's clueless leadership idiots like Belfiore and turf-protecting corporate worms like Sinofsky ran amok and now MS more and more looks like a Costa Concordia just an hour before hitting the ground.

I saw a mockup that flipped the perspective on the window, and I've gotta say, that simple change made the logo look a whole lot better. Like Windows 8 was a kid that couldn't wait to go outside on a beautiful day.

Instead of coming up with a new logo, they should have come up with a new brand. "Windows" is just dated. I still think their mobile platform should have been branded "Zune". Windows simply doesn't make sense in the mobile market.

Windows 8 ushers in a new, and completely different, Windows look and feel: it brings the Metro design concept to the desktop. With Metro's emphasis on clean lines and typography, Microsoft wanted a logo that reflected these ideals, and so commissioned agency Pentagram to create the new logo.

They commissioned a third party to do this?! Let me take a whack at it then...

The new Xbox logo, courtesy of myself and 3 minutes on Paint.NET. Can I have a couple thousand dollars now, Mr. Ballmer?

Also, the new Windows logo looks like a Metro-style BSOD... at an angle...